Events of National & International Importance
40 Indian prisoners released from Karachi jail
1. The release of
the prisoners from Karachi’s district jail Malir comes a day after Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif warmly shook
hands and exchanged pleasantries at the 18th SAARC Summit in Nepal.
2. India and
Pakistan regularly arrest fishermen who venture into unmarked territorial
waters of the two countries.
‘Community can help mentally ill’
1. The Mental
Health Care Bill is expected to be introduced in the winter session of
Parliament.
2. Though
psychiatrists have reservations about the aims of the Bill, they are looking
forward to a framework to provide a starting point.
3. They place the
onus on the State governments of coming up with workable models that would
include community participation with the focus on ensuring that the patient
does not suffer for want of treatment.
4. National
Mental Health Programme is aimed at integrating mental health into general
health.
5. But that could
not be achieved as psychiatric disorders were positioned in low priority over
other national programmes in view of incentives and accountability.
6. Even if the
State manages to get funds from the Central pool, they will be a one-time
investment, usually for five years.
7. This could be
used to set up smaller centres with trained manpower to offer medical care and
help family manage patients.
Economic Development
Fiscal relief for India as OPEC maintains output
1. Crude oil prices are set to decline further, with the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) deciding to maintain output at 30
million barrels per day.
2. Analysts now expect prices to inch closer to $65
a barrel. The Opec move is good news for emerging economies, such as
India.
3. India, which has been battling high inflation for
several years, is heading for happier times from a macroeconomic point of view.
4. The central bank was earlier factoring in oil at
around $100 a barrel. The 21 per cent decline in price from that level would
help lower inflation.
5. For every $10 a barrel fall in crude oil prices,
the current account deficit can narrow by 40-50 basis points.
Fin Min rejects tax breaks for SEZs
1. In a major jolt for Special Economic Zones (SEZ),
the Union ministry of finance has turned down a proposal to remove Minimum
Alternate Tax (MAT) and Dividend Distribution Tax (DDT) on these.
2. She noted there had been several demands from various
quarters for discontinuing the MAT imposed on SEZ developers and units and the
DDT, levied only on the developers.
3. The proposal to impose MAT and DDT on SEZs was
first announced in the 2011-2012 budget.
4. Subsequently, these were introduced, although the
SEZ Act specifically mentions a stipulated tax holiday to these zones.
5. Despite protests from SEZs and unit developers,
the taxes came into effect in April 2012.
6. Presently, 196 SEZs are functional in the
country. A majority are in Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and
Telangana.
7. Recently, the government cancelled 35 SEZs due to
lack of satisfactory output. And, 18 such projects which had in-principle
approval but haven’t shown progress.
WTO Trade Facilitation pact, food security signed
1.
After almost 11 months of parleys, the
World Trade Organization (WTO) on Thursday signed the trade facilitation
agreement (TFA).
2. It also agreed to
India’s demand for a perpetual ‘peace clause’ till a final solution to the
issue of food stockholding is found.
3.
The decisions were taken at a ‘special’
meeting of the WTO General Council (GC), the highest
decision-making body after ministerial conferences.
4.
Following tense negotiations and
last-minute hiccups due to oppositions from Argentina and Pakistan, the GC
adopted three main decisions.
5.
Signing of the TFA protocol, extension of
the ‘peace clause’ for an indefinite period and setting a deadline for the
remaining Bali package commitments for poorer countries.
6.
The breakthrough came after India and the
US earlier this month reached an understating where the Americans assured
support to India’s demand for a permanent ‘peace clause’ and, in turn, India
agreed to sign the TFA, which it had vetoed in July.
7.
The TFA, expected to infuse $1 trillion
into the global economy and create 21 million jobs, will now be open for
ratification by all 160 member countries.
Environment & Ecology
With
274 tiger deaths in four years, India records highest toll between two censuses
1.
There is bad news for the big
cat. At least 274 tigers have died in the last four years.
2.
Union Environment Minister
Prakash Javadekar said in response to a question in the Parliament
3.
This figure is the highest for
any given period between two assessment cycles.
4.
The findings of the 2014 tiger
population census will be released by next month.
5.
Of this number, only 82 tigers
died due to natural reasons. More than 70 per cent of tiger deaths were due to
poaching or reasons that forest departments have not been able to establish
yet.
6.
According to the 2010 census,
India had approximately 1,706 tigers (between the lower limit of 1,520 and upper
limit of 1,909).
7.
Between 2006 and 2010, around
180 tigers were reported to have died. From 2002 to 2006, 105 tigers had died,
while 146 tigers were reported dead between 1998 and 2002.
No policy for protection of tigers outside reserves
1.
The government has hardly
addressed the mortality of tigers outside tiger reserves.
2.
According
to the figures given by Javadekar, almost half of total tiger deaths have been
reported from outside tiger reserves.
3.
Of the 105 tigers that died
outside tiger reserves in the last three years, only 13 are reported to have
died due to natural reasons.
4.
As tiger conservation efforts
turn into results, a huge number of big cats have either dispersed to or are
living in forests outside tiger reserves.
5.
Government policy is, however,
focused only on the reserves. There is no policy to effectively address habitat
destruction, human-tiger conflicts and poaching outside reserves.
Area
under brackish water culture increased by 48% in Gujarat: Study
1.
Gujarat is the only coastal
state where area under brackish water culture has increased by about 48%, from
1,297 hectares (ha) in 2005-06 to 1,916 ha as of 2009-10.
2.
Although
Gujarat ranks second in terms of area available for brackish water
culture .
3.
But in
terms of area under cultivation it lags far behind other states as of the total
estimated potential brackish water area of over 3.7 lakh ha available in
Gujarat.
4.
About
3,600 million ton (MT) shrimp is produced in area under brackish water culture
across Gujarat.
5.
Area under
shrimp cultivation has declined significantly by over 27% in four years across
coastal India from about 1.40 lakh ha in 2005-06 to just about one lakh ha in
2009-10, noted the study.
6.
Drop in
farm gate price realized by farmers not being much attractive to take up this
activity is one key reason for decline in area under cultivation.
7.
Besides,
out of the total potential area of over 11 lakh hectares (ha) available for
brackish water culture across India, a meagre 8.5% of the same, about 1 lakh ha
is being used for shrimp farming in the country.
8.
Over-exploitation
of shrimp from natural sources and ever increasing demand for shrimp and shrimp
products globally has resulted in wide demand-supply gap.
9.
Thereby
necessitating the need for exploring new avenues for increasing production of
prawns and increasing brackish water area under culture.
10.
Widespread
disease incidences, poor economic situation, lack of technical knowhow, absence
of transparent pricing mechanism, ecological imbalances and rising feed costs
are several concerns raising a question on sustainability of shrimp industry in
India.
Biodiversity & Climate Change
Geoengineering
could be catastrophic for the planet
1.
Scientists have warned that
geoengineering, an emerging discipline that seeks to tackle problems related to
climate change, could have “catastrophic consequences” for the planet’s
inhabitants.
2.
The researchers examined two
types of geoengineering—solar radiation management (SRM) and carbon dioxide
removal (CDR).
3.
They reached two conclusions.
One was that billions of people would suffer worse floods and droughts if SRM
was used to block warming sunlight.
4.
The other was that CDR, which
sucks carbon dioxide from the air, was less risky but would take many more
decades to develop and take effect.
5.
The Stratospheric Particle
Injection for Climate Engineering (Spice) project which abandoned attempts to
test spraying droplets into the atmosphere from a balloon in 2012.
6.
The research showed
geoengineering was “neither a magic bullet nor a Pandora’s box”.
7.
CDR tackled the root of the
climate change problem by taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.
8.
It would be much easier to
govern and would have relatively few side effects.
9.
It would take multiple decades
to develop CDR technologies and decades more for the CO2 reductions to produce
a cooling effect.
10.
The international goal of
keeping warming below the “dangerous” level of 2°C would only be possible with
some form of geoengineering and that research into such technology should
continue.
Editorial
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